A method for the production of Sb-targets made of thin layers of enriched antimony (Sb) to be irradiated with accelerated protons is described in Mausner et al. (Mausner at al., Nuclear data for production of 117mSn for biomedical application, J. Radiation Effects, 94, 59-63 (1986); S. V. Ermolaev at al., J. Labeled Compounds and Pharmaceuticals, 50, 611-612 (2007)). However, the thin layers of antimony did not result in a high amount of produced 117mSn on accelerated proton beams.
Another method is based on target preparation from thick antimony monolith in a target shell (B. L. Zhuikov et al., Process and targets for production of no-carrier added radiotin, Russian Patent No. 2313838 (published Dec. 27, 2007)). However, pure Sb is a material with a low heat conductivity and thermal stability, and melts, and sublimes under intensive proton beams.
In other reports (C. Loch et al., “A New Preparation of Germanium-68”, Int. J. Appl. Radiat. Isot., 33, 261-270 (1982); N. R. Stevenson at al., A New Production Method for Germanium-68, Synthesis and Application of Isotopically Labelled Compounds, Ed. J. Allen, John Willey & Sons, 1995, p. 119-223; A. A. Razbash et al., “Production of Germanium-68 in Russia”, Proc. 6th Workshop on Targetry and Target Chemistry, Vancouver, Canada, 1995, p. 5114), GaNi alloys were used as target material for production 68Ge. Also uranium-magnesium oxide composition as a target material was used for production of 99Mo on nuclear reactors (I. S. Kurina et al., Device for Producing Radionuclides, Russian Patent No. 2122251 (published Nov. 20, 1998)). However, Sb-target material in these reports was not mentioned or considered for use.